This year, The Substance (and Demi Moore, The Substance) mark the only overlap between the Weirdcademy Awards and Hollywood’s lipstick-on-a-pig hootenanny, the Most Conventional Movie Awards. This follows a trend dating back all the way to last year of Hollywood recognizing one and exactly one weird film for awards season. Coralie Fargeat‘s gonzo body horror had just enough satirical traction to get the Academy to overlook the fact that at the end a bizarre mashup of its two lead characters drenches a tux-and-gown wearing audience in blood, but besides that, weird movies got about as far with the Academy as they normally do: nowhere. Francis Ford Coppola couldn’t sell enough wineries buy a single nomination for Megalopolis, which has to be the best New York-set Roman epic ever made where Jon Voight marvels at his own erection.
Instead, we get to choose between two musicals (one an overblown bore and the other mired in scandal), another (yawn) musical biopic, and a three-and-a-half hour movie about a destitute Holocaust survivor who’s also an impotent morphine addict and a rape victim with a mute sister-in-law and a wheelchair-bound wife, but other than that is a pretty carefree guy. (It’s the brutalest).
The Oscars are a joke, and everyone knows it. But you, my friend, you aren’t content with the same-old same-old. You want weird in your movies. The Weirdcademy Awards are for you, the moviegoer whose friends roll their eyes and sigh loudly when you suggest movie night should feature a gory all-puppet movie about a recovering alcoholic forced to become a serial killer because aliens have implanted a bomb in his neck.
Although the editors of 366 Weird Movies select the nominees from the pool of available movies, the Awards themselves are a naked popularity contest, and do not necessarily reflect either the artistic merit or intrinsic weirdness of the films involved. The Weirdcademy Awards are tongue-in-cheek and for fun only. Ballot-stuffing is a frequent occurrence. Please, no wagering.
The Weirdcademy Awards are given to the Weirdest Movie, Actor, Actress and Scene of the previous year, as voted by the members of the Weirdcademy of Motion Picture Arts and Weirdness.
Who makes up the Weirdcademy? Membership is open to all readers of 366 Weird Movies. If you can figure out how to vote in the poll, you are qualified to join. You can not be turned down because of your age, sex, religious or political affiliation, pronouns, or whether you still use “X.” There is no requirement that you’ve have to actually see any of the movies listed before voting. You can vote for any or all categories.
You can only vote once—so choose carefully. We’ll keep voting open until March 1, so we can announce our results before the Academy Awards and steal their thunder.
Be sure to also vote for Weirdest Short Film of the Year. To watch all five nominees and to cast your vote, please click here.
Here is your ballot for the 2024 edition of the Weirdcademy
Awards: